Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying… Suffering is the most stupendous fact in human experience; it is the most difficult problem in our religion. Alas! it is not necessary to prove its existence. We see it everywhere. It is a blessed thing that amidst such surroundings sensitive persons, who feel the thrusts of life keenly, and acutely sympathise with pain in its manifold forms, as experienced by others, can by means of the imagination be cheered with a foreglance of a better state of things when the former things shall have passed away. The Apostle Paul, a man of massive and logical intellect, the greatest Jew that ever lived, was a glorious dreamer who found comfort and courage in the bright prospect of the far-off future. The first point of view in which pain presents itself is that of a mystery. Let us hear what metaphysicians have to say respecting it. Plato tells us that pain is the root, the condition, the antecedent of pleasure, and the latter is only a restoration of the feeling subject from a state contrary to nature to a state conformable with nature. The Kantian philosophy maintains that pleasure is the feeling of the furtherance, pain of the hindrance of life. "Pleasure," says Hamilton, "is a reflex of the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power, of whose energy we are conscious. Pain, a reflex of the overstrained or repressed exertion of such a power." "Pain," affirms Calderwood, "is not merely a negation or want of pleasure, but a positive experience opposite in kind." "By pleasure and pain I must be understood to mean whatsoever delight or uneasiness is felt by us, whether arising from any grateful or unacceptable sensation or reflection," is the opinion expressed by John Locke. After reading all that philosophers have written on the subject, mankind will still regard it as an unmitigated evil, nor will they be on the way to unravel the mystery. It may be said that this is a world of probation, and that pain is penal or disciplinary. Such is often the case, but it is not always so. Walk through the lengthy wards of a children's hospital. There is no discipline there. Poor children! they are too young to be its fitting subjects. Take man as we find him — African or Englishman, Greek or Roman — and stud what you see. The poor beggar that sweeps the crossing, and that holds out his hat to you for a copper, is a child of God as much as you; the only difference being that perhaps you know it and try to act like a child, while he has forgotten it altogether. Every-day life experiences are illustrative of the Pauline expression, "The whole creation groaneth," etc. Does Almighty God find His pleasure in the most degraded form of sensualism, in witnessing the torments of His creatures? Were such a conclusion possible, I could not ask you to render homage to Him, because He is the sweetest, gentlest, noblest of beings. I should become the victim of despair. But let me crush the spirit of blasphemy, and clear up this dark mystery by consulting the oracles of God. Therein I learn that man is the author of all the misery he endures. God made man free, the arbiter of his destiny; but when put to the proof he failed, yielded to temptation, and chose evil for his good. Man being the creature of sin, disease, and pain, his posterity, from the hour of birth, must have inherent in their nature the elements of multiform suffering. Here you see that sin is not necessarily the penalty, but the consequence, always of previous transgression. Moreover, you will observe that each generation, by its own irregularities, will entail upon its successor minds more debased, and bodies more accessible to disease. Here you have an explanation of the mystery of pain. From our own experience we can reason that pain in its manifold shapes works for our good. Tell me the painful feeling in you, and I will explain to you its mode of operation. Have you a want unsatisfied, are you weary of your pleasures, are you discontented with your circumstances? In this feeling there is a strong impulse to action. Are you depressed by a sense of deficiency or of transgression? Therein you have an impulse towards virtue, towards improvement. Do you sigh for friendship, or feel the sting of unrequited love? Therein you are urged to live out of self, and to be kind, generous, and pitiful to the many hearts that bleed in this cold and selfish world. Are you sick-bereaved? Has pain deadened your body to all sensuous pleasure? Or, surrounded by your kind, is your heart a desolation? Fortitude, faith, patience, trust in heaven, the hope of heaven there are no other resources when the heart is broken and the body shattered by disease. To the eye of a sculptor in every block of stone there is a statue; but to make it visible to every eye it must be cut out of the block with mallet and chisel. But the stone does not see the end in view, it only feels the rough treatment which it querulously resents. It wishes to be left alone. It is quite satisfied with itself as it is. "How long must I suffer?" asks the stone sorrowfully. "Only till all that is unsuitable and improper shall be removed," rejoins the chisel; "and when made meet for the high situation you are to occupy, you will be placed amongst the others, and be as beautiful as they are." Pain is oftentimes the result of disobedience to physical laws; not seldom is it hereditary, the diseased body and corrupt affections being transmitted by parents to their offspring; but in many instances it is not traceable to either of these causes. A being may be sinless and still a sufferer; a sufferer, not because his heart is base, but because his soul is noble. It we be pitiful, tender, and sympathetic, we cannot escape suffering. Such suffering develops character; and by it we become partakers of God's holiness — of His exquisite compassion and sensibility. Do not, therefore, suppose that simply because you suffer you are set apart of God and made an example. You are under the law which Christ lived under, which all human families live under. Those who have never suffered know only the surface of life. As one must strike flint to call forth sparks of fire, so must we strike the heart to make it capable of great and noble deeds. Austerity and mortification moulded the saints of old. They met misfortune with a smile, and scorned the fear of death even when the fire was at the stake, and the flames rose around their heads, because they knew that out of their very ashes God would call them to an immortality of happiness. This is the true effect of sorrow: it detaches us from the earth, lifts us up to heaven, and unites us to God. (J. E. Foster, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. |
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